J. B. Danquah

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Joseph Kwame Kyeretwi Boakye Danquah (December 1895 – 4 February 1965), Ghanaian statesman, was one of the primary opposition leaders to Ghanaian president and independence leader Kwame Nkrumah. He was known as Nana Kwame Kyeretwie to close friends and associates.

[edit] Early life

Danquah was born in the Ghanaian town of Bempong from the Akyem Akan people. He was descended from the royal family of Ofori Panyin Fie, once the rulers of one of Ghana's most powerful states, and still then one of the most influential families in Ghanaian politics. Danquah entered the University of London directly from junior high school and was educated in law and philosophy. He was the first continental African to receive a doctorate in law from the University of London.^{[citation needed]} He also became the first president of the West African Students' Union.

He set up a private law practice when he returned to Ghana (then the Gold Coast) in 1927. He had strong nationalist feelings on his return to Ghana and developed an acquaintance with a prominent figure in the politics of the Gold Coast and African independence, J. E. Casely Hayford, who founded the pro-independence National Congress of British West Africa. At his death in 1930, Casely Hayford is said to have called Danquah to him at his deathbed and urged him to carry the mantle of Africa's emancipation. [1] Danquah, however, was not as impressed with Casely Hayford's vision of a single state formed out of Britain's African colonies in West Africa, which were divided geographically by a number of French colonies; nor was Danquah interested in a political union with French West Africa, whose elites, Danquah believed, were more Eurocentric than the Afrocentric elites in Ghana. Danquah then elected to support a nationalist path in support of an independent Ghana.

He founded a newspaper, the Times of West Africa, which ran from 1930 to 1935. Danquah's newspaper was the first daily newspaper in Ghana.

He was involved in various capacities in Gold Coast politics in the 1930s, serving on a delegation to the British Colonial Office in 1934, and as secretary-general of the Gold Coast Youth Conference from 1934-1937.

[edit] Path to Independence

Danquah became a member of the Legislative Council in 1946 and actively pursued independence legislation for his country. He helped to found the pro-independence United Gold Coast Convention. When Kwame Nkrumah returned from abroad in 1947, he was appointed as chief organizer of the UGCC and transformed it from a grassroots movement into a political party. Following the 1948 Gold Coast riots, Danquah was arrested together with Kwame Nkrumah, Obetsebi Lamptey, Ako Adjei, Edward Akufo-Addo and William Ofori Atta, who collectively became national heroes known as the "Big Six." In 1949, following a suspension and growing rift with the Danquah and the UGCC leadership, Nkrumah resigned his position and left to form his own Convention People's Party (CPP).

Elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1951, Danquah promoted the formation of a bicameral parliament for the Gold Coast that included a "House of Representatives" and a "House of Elders." Failing this, Danquah's political prestige declined; he failed in his subsequent election bids for that assembly in 1954 and 1956.

Ghana gained independence in 1957. Danquah ran for the Presidency against Nkrumah in 1960, but garnered only 10% of the vote . He was imprisoned the following year under the Preventive Detention Act, but only held for a year. On his release, he was elected President of the Ghana Bar Association. He was imprisoned again in 1964. J.B. Danquah died in prison, and any public celebration of Danquah's life was suppressed by the state.

Danquah wrote two commentaries on the life and politics of the Akan people: Gold Coast: Akan Laws and Customs and the Akim Abuakwa Constitution (1928) and Akan Doctrine of God (1944). This latter book demonstrated the compatibility of African religion with Christianity, and was a "milestone"^[1] for African Protestants looking for ways to reclaim their African heritage.